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Notice of Professor Schoum's Work on (he Climate and Vegeta^ 

 Hon of Italy. 



The present happy state of development of the physical 

 sciences, allows us to treat collectively of different portions of 

 physical geography which were formerly separated. The floras 

 of our time are more than mere pieces of nomenclature ; and 

 the meteorological observations are more than mere figures, 

 without meaning. 



The labours of Humboldt," Buch, and Wahlenberg, which 

 have chiefly contributed to this union of the physical sciences, 

 excited an early interest on the part of the author in the geo- 

 graphical part of phytology. A journey to the mountains of 

 Norway, undertaken in 1812 in company with Christian Smith, 

 who afterwards fell a victim to his zeal for the sciences at 

 Congo, further contributed to decide the direction of his stu- 

 dies. Humboldt had presented a picture of the great physical 

 relations in the tropical regions of the New World, — Von 

 Buch and Walilenberg had described Scandinavia, the Car- 

 pathians, and the northern portion of Switzerland ; and it 

 therefore appeared to the author that an account of the phy- 

 sical relations of an intermediate region could not fail to be 

 of great interest ; and no country seemed more suited to this 

 object than Italy, from its presenting so much variety, owing 

 to its considerable extent from north to south, and from its 

 possessing the Alps as its frontier, being traversed by the 

 Apennines, including various volcanic tracts, and exhibiting 

 such a development of coast. Moreover, there is no other 

 country in the same latitude where plants have been so much 

 examined, and where so many meteorological observations have 

 been made, investigations essential for the exact determina- 

 tion of general- physical relations. So early as the year 1815, 

 the author sketched out a tour in Italy with this object, a 

 journey which met with the approbation of his master and 

 paternal friend Mr Hornemann ; and, by the advice of his scien- 

 tific counsellors, the King of Denmark, always zealous in the 

 cause of science, was pleased to present the author with the 

 means of realizing his projects. 



